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Looking at my WordPress stats, I found a really weird day on Feb. 27th, apparently Yahoo! Image Search was inundated with the word “maze” that day. Check out all these crazy hits, click on the image to the left for the full size.

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I rarely ever blog about or post on social media about work. My work life is work, and my personal life is personal. I’ve never felt the need to discuss, vent about, or provide detail about my job. I’m going to go ahead and break with that for this post.

Unfortunately, the time has come where I need to update my resume. About a year and a half ago, the company that I was working for was sold, shut down, & liquidated. A core group of people decided to try to move on & start a company in the same industry, and I was invited to be a part of it. I was honored to be asked to participate, and glad to be gainfully employed. Sadly, things didn’t pan out as planned, and the company is also in the process of shutting down. Basically, I’m no worse off than I was a year ago.

At that time, I had an updated resume, and went on my first job interview in a long time. I was offered employment elsewhere. It may have worked, but the pay wasn’t where it needed to be for me to comfortably continue to pay rent and put food on the table. I went with the group I knew & salary I needed. I have no regrets, I’m just illustrating that I don’t have much job interview experience, but it has mostly all been positive.

Basically, I’ve been at the same job for 10 or so years. In 2002, I started at an a/v integration company as the shipping guy. That company was purchased in 2005 and I was hired by the new company, which closed in 2011. Then on to the newest one where I was doing all slight variations of the same thing. I liked my work, it was a nice mix of desk/paperwork & physical warehouse work sometimes, it was always different & challenging. I have learned many rules, processes, & things about the equipment over the years. I was able to adapt to many changes, and survived them all (up until now).

I need help with my resume. I think I first updated this format in 2005, when it looked like I may have needed to search for other employment. (Luckily, I was able to work temporarily for the new company, proved my merit, and was hired full time.) In 2012 this format may be stale. I’m not big on titles. I call myself a “shipping guy” but I do much more than that. I have more skills than a simple shipping guy needs. I hate phrases like “team player”. I am, but it sounds goofy. Who reads that & doesn’t roll their eyes? I’m generally not boastful (other than in jest), but this is one time when you need to be. There’s a lot riding on a resume. It gets your foot in the door.

I’m confident in my writing (thanks to this blog), but thrown into a resume it looks braggadocios, fragmented, & boring. I love bullet points, but breaking things down into them, I feel like I lose cohesion.

I need this to grab someone’s attention, highlight what I can do & what I can offer, and get me a job.

I have a lot of skills in my utility belt.

What do I want to do? I’m certainly qualified for shipping, warehousing, and inventory jobs… entry level or supervisory. Sadly, entry level pay may no longer be acceptable. I could certainly do something else though. I’m a quick learner. I’d love to get paid for this writing / blogging / insanity thing (I mean… show/album/food reviews, photos, humor, goofy letters? I can do a bunch of stuff there). Unfortunately I don’t have a degree. Can you get one in shipping? Certainly 10 years experience in shipping I would have learned anything that I could in 2 or 4 years of school? I do have some training in graphic design & commercial art, I have experience in drafting (by hand even… does anyone remember that?), some talents that have yet to get me paid like drawing mazes and photography, and I recently completed classes in Microsoft Project… so I could even fill a “Jr. Project Manager” type role where I can learn as I go. I’m certainly adept with computers, know old school (& also useless) html coding, and can pick things up rather quickly with any kind of program. I can promote things like my band, the blog, and Food Allergies like mad online. I think I’d be a good PR person, I just lack formal training or experience. Maybe it’s time for something different.

So, I need help with my resume. What works, what doesn’t? 1 page? 2 pages? If so, how do I fit it all on one or to pages (I think it kicks into an atrocious 3 now)? What do I need to express? Do I need a cheesy cover letter? Do letters of recommendation help? References right on the resume, or “provided by request”? 3 Personal/3 professional? 3 total? Cover letter? No cover letter? Cover paragraph?

I’m laying it all out here and asking for your help. Take a look at this resume and tell me what you think?

Please excuse the format, it needs a new look… something anyway, and Google Docs may have messed with it a bit. Other than that though… I ask you to be honest, brutal, constructive, and hopefully helpful.

Also… know anyone that’s hiring? Are you hiring? Point me in the right direction here. I’m confident in my in-person interviews, and with anyone that already knows me or has worked with me.

Thanks in advance for your help. I need to start hitting up InDeed, PA Career Link, etc. with my resume. I know I have a lot of friends, family & readers that can help me out here. It would be crazy to not use all of the resources at my disposal, right?

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I haven’t forgotten about blogging. There’s just been a bunch going on lately. The band had a few gigs back-to-back, & we’ve been trying to come up with new stuff. The real job has been rather taxing of late, the workload and hours have increased. The wife & I seem to have some sort of scheduled social or family function every weekend lately. Our week at Living Waters is coming up & I’ve been preparing for that. I started to work on my New York Pro guitar & chronicle that, but got to a stopping point & haven’t had time to get back to it. I’ve been trying to pull together some mazes, new old, some unfinished… I want to get a bunch ready to go, then look at my best publishing options. I’ve also been battling a nasty stuffy nose coupled with a summer cold & fatigue.

I’m certainly not complaining, there’s just a bunch of stuff going on. I felt the need to explain the lack of posts. I even have some drafts written on what I feel to be some entertaining subjects… I just need the time to sit, make the graphics & write the posts that go along with them.

Hi, I saw a post in which you asked people to solve a maze, and send the solution to you, but I just can’t seem to find the post now. Oh well, here is my solution.

It was a great maze! Your style of utilizing tight squiggly paths and many dead ends made it a real challenge to solve. I enjoyed the complexity and design of this wonderful maze.

I did find a couple issues that I should bring to your attention. I hesitate to say anything because I fear it could be taken in the wrong spirit. But I assure you that even though we don’t know each other, I wish you every success with your mazes. The things I found are very minor, and things I have done many times myself, and not caught until much later. Furthermore none of these issues keep this from being a very good maze.

With that said, this is what I found (refer to the attachment for a visual):

The areas marked in red are closed off from the rest of the maze so the solver is not able to get into them from the starting line. This is an easy fix, open up an end in each of these areas, and you have created additional dead end to frustrate the solver.

The second thing is the three loops marked with green dotted lines. Some maze designers use loops, others do not. Personally, I don’t like using loops except in certain specialized mazes. As the designer, you get to chose the rules you apply to your designs. Since you only have a small amount of loops, I am thinking that they were not intentional. Again, if you did not mean to include loops, they are easy to fix. Closing off one end makes yet more dead ends. Having loops along the solution route adds a further complication of having alternate paths which lead to the end, and these other ways to get to the finish must be shown when you provide solutions.

If you can bare one more suggestion, here it is. As you make the last turn for the finish line, the trail forks off into three paths. When solvers are so close to the finish, they can see which path is the right one. I would recommend closing off the two false paths at this point, and finding another place to open them up, so you create two more dead ends right at the finish.

These are all minor things, but I hope they help. I don’t see myself as an expert maze designer. Many of my mazes are poorly designed. I lack a mathematical sense, which can be very helpful in designing mazes. Also I have a really horrible sense of direction, seriously. I am constantly getting lost when I go places. But I enjoy making mazes, so I do it.

I sincerely hope you can find a way for more people to enjoy your fine mazes.

Thanks for taking the time to complete the maze & for all the pointers! How did you find me?

I should be able to look through them to find the one that this matches without a problem.

I don’t know if I really “design” mazes, I kind of just draw them. I do appreciate your advice though… it would be easier to complete without the loops, and more challenging without the areas that are closed off.

Do you have any of your mazes up online anywhere?

Would you mind if I posted your email in a blog along with your solution?

I enjoyed doing your maze, so no problem. Much more challenging than any of mine.

Originally, I found your site when I did a WordPress Topics Search for “Mazes”, and was able to get a hold of you because your e-mail was listed on your About page.

I do not have any mazes on-line. I no longer own the rights to the 33 in the published book. All of the other mazes I have done are part of unpublished or unfinished books. I guess I don’t like the idea of putting mazes on-line that I am trying to get into print.

You are welcome to do whatever you wish with the solution I made, and if you want to include my e-mail, that is fine also.

Rick

That’s pretty cool! Rick had to take some serious time solving the maze & doing his photo-editing work in the solution. This encourages me that there are more people out there who dig mazes, & we all may benefit from me getting a book published. Maybe I can put more though into my mazes, instead of just doodling. I certainly could use more money to buy goofy guitars.

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If I published a book of my mazes, would you buy it? Know anyone who would? Think there’s a market for it? I’ve recently been talking to another dude online that drew mazes in the past that are mazes similar to mine (in addition to some other very cool stuff), and who’s going for it through Amazon. The rationale is even if he only sells one or two a month, it’s still income he didn’t have. There’s always Kickstarter or Lulu, too.

I’d love it if someone could make an app where you can complete one of my mazes with your finger or a stylus on an Android, iPhone, tablet PC, or E-reader. I don’t know to what end… but it would be fun. Any interested developers out there?

I’d have to scan, sort, arrange, and of course draw some more… maybe even figure out the solutions… but I think I could get it all put together.